Precious and Fragile Things (Need Special Handling)
by Ballycastle-Bat
Summary: [Olivarry & Spideychelle] Barry Allen hadn't expected to become a father at twenty-three, and it had been something he had to fight for, but he refused to leave Peter Parker alone. Now he's trying to navigate adult life as a father.


[Pairings: Biro Ace!Barry Allen x Oliver Queen, Iris West x Eddie Thawne, One sided Pan!Peter Parker/Harry Osborn, past Barry Allen/Beck Cooper, OFC x OFC. Brief Barry Allen/Patty Spivot.

Genres: Found family, coming of age, origin story.

Type: Standalone

Warnings: This is a MAJOR "Don't like, don't read" fic. Sexuality issues, disucseed past rape, child abuse (psycial emotional), Major Character Death. Transgender characters. Not Ralph Friendly.

Spoilers/Timeline: N/A

Author's Notes: I drew insperation from a lot of different Spider-man media, but Peter himself draws a lot from MCU Spider-man.]

The gymnasium of Tesla Academy was busy with different community and government workers preparing their displays. Barry Allen glanced around the room of youngsters. Tesla Academy was a school for the 'gifted' kids K-12. The city was hosting a community project where city workers did workshops at the local grade schools for the fourth and fifth graders. This was the fourth or fifth school that Barry had visited with Ralph.

However, why a school this academically focused wanted a job fair for random state jobs Barry would never know. He could see forensics and the District Attorney, but these kids were here because they wanted something more intellectual than physical with their lives.

Most of the kids would go on to be lawyers or scientists. Not that Barry say anything wrong with jobs like beat cops, firefighters or even waste management. He just wasn't sure why kids who were already deciding which Ivy League school would suit their business education or their other chosen career path.

The younger kids he could see, but why this would be mandatory for the junior and senior students he would see in the next few days he wasn't really sure. He didn't know how they could benefit from internships and training programs that had nothing to do with college degrees they were already working towards.

He couldn't imagine training so hard for something and then trading it in last minute for a whole new set of training. Especially something almost the complete opposite to what he'd trained for initially.

A tall balding man approached, pulling him from his thoughts. "Officers, I was told you would have a third?" he was clearly wondering where captain Singh was

"Hi, I'm Barry Allen, the assistant CSI. The 'officer' title isn't needed. This is Ralph Dibney. He's a beat cop." Barry offered a hand, which the man promptly shook. "Our third was meant to be captain Singh, but I'm afraid he got tied up at the precinct and won't be able to make it until later, sir."

Ralph shook his hand as well. "You must be the principal! It's good to meet ya, er, sir."

"Okay, so. Today we only have grades K-5. If you have any questions I'll be wandering about and we'll have lots of teachers around. Just flag one of us down." He informed them before he went to talk to the other booths. (He didn't seem to be the social type, and Barry didn't mind) It was all individuals who worked for the city or the county. Barry met eyes with one of the other State employees. Becky Cooper. They had dated briefly in high school, and in truth, she never really got over him.

He truthfully hadn't seen her in years though. He winced when she noticed him. "Barry Allen!" she called, and waved, starting to head over.

Barry leaned over to Ralph. "How willing are you to shoot me in the leg?"

Ralph looked up and saw the tall blonde making her way over to them. "Woah!" he blinked. "Check out the babe at four o'clock."

Barry chagrined, always wearing his feelings out in the open. He didn't want to deal with this right now, he was trying to do his job. He didn't want to catch up with Becky Cooper. He had never called her crazy because of how he hated the word directed at himself but he had come close a few times.

"Becky," he smiled softly. "What are you doing here?"

"I run the Central City Tourism Board!" she beamed at him. She spoke to him as if they were old friends. Which didn't surprise Barry but it put him off.. Though, any interaction with her would have put him off.

"Oh wow," he nodded, forcing a smile. Becky always did like organizing things. She was Student Body President as well as on Prom committee for Junior and Senior prom. Though it wasn't this fact that made her insufferable. It was the fact that she was a bit of a parasite. She attached to things-- mostly people and sucked the life out for them.

Barry often thought of songs to the theme of She's So Mean by Matchbox Twenty when thinking of her. She tended to treat Barry more like a pet than a boyfriend, and he didn't like it. However it took him a while to admit it was bad. Iris eventually talked sense into him about a year into their turburlant (even by teenage standards) relationship that only left him locked up and depressed.

"What have you been up to?" Becky pressed. "You're a cop now? Why aren't you wearing a uniform?" There was an edge to the question that Barry recognised-- Becky was picturing him in a uniform.

"You know each other?" Ralph butt in, almost pushing Barry out of the way at the sight of the pretty woman.

"You never mentioned me to your friend?" Becky seemed surprised, almost offended, her mouth turned down into an ever slight frown.

Barry stuffed his hands into his pockets. He had blocked Becky on Facebook, and blocked her phone number so he had no idea why she was here now. Several years after they last talked. "We don't really work together." he cleared his throat, and prayed that a kid would wander over and interrupt. Barry was now even more put out by how the kids swarmed the Fire Department's booth.

However, at the same time he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be left alone with Ralph again. After some consideration he decided Ralph wasn't nearly as bad.

"How do you two know each other?" Ralph's eyebrows upturned. Barry knew he was shocked that a girl who looked like Becky was interested in Barry in any capacity.

Becky grinned brightly. "We were high school sweethearts!"

Barry pinched his nose between his forefinger and thumb. "Becky, I think there's a kid looking at your booth." he seemed extremely relieved.

"You hit that?" Ralph asked, too low for any passing kids to hear.

Barry rolled his eyes. "You're gross sometimes, Ralph." He sighed heavily and ran a hand into his hair. "We just dated in high school."

"Why don't you sound excited? She's hot!" Of course. Becky was attractive. Therefore according to the laws of Ralph he should just be a slave to her looks. Barry always got frustrated with people (mostly other men) like that. He briefly recalled his only male friend in school telling he he couldn't complain about Becky because she was 'a ten'.

Barry wasn't about to get into his miserable relationship with Ralph anymore than he was willing to speak badly about Becky behind her back. As bad as his relationship with her was, he didn't feel like it was a very gentlemanly thing to do.

Barry and Ralph were very different people, or at the very least, Barry had thought so. Barry Allen had a love for his work, while knowing how to have fun with it. Ralph on the other hand, made everything a joke. He gave Barry very intense 'nice guy' vibes. He always acted so surprised when Barry didn't respond positively to his behaviour or when he was rejected by women.

They were bickering at the table when a young girl came by, she looked to be in about third grade. "What's that?" she pointed to the radio on Ralph's shoulder.

"Hiya, kiddo!" Ralph smiled and knelt down so he was on her level. "What's what?" he looked at the girl, cocking his head slightly to the side.

The girl pointed a finger at his radio again. "That!"

Ralph smiled and pulled the radio off his shoulder. "This is my police radio, it keeps all the other officers in contact. "I'll show you." the girl watched curiously as Ralph pulled the radio to this face. "I would like to inform everyone on channel four that Barry Allen is still the largest nerd at CCPD."

Laughter roared over the other end. "10-4 copy! I'll file the order the renew his nerd license." Kids usually adored this bit. Would laugh with him, but this wasn't one of those times.

The small girl gaped at Ralph. "That's not nice!" her tone was awfully stern for a girl her age and she was visibly pouting. She was not happy. She turned on her heels and tugged the shirt of a tall woman in a pair of deep maroon heels. The woman turned around and came over to the booth.

Barry kept his head down, feeling almost that same anxiety he did at school. "Officer Dibney?"

"Yes ma'am?" Ralph turned to face her with a smile. He stood with his hands on his hips, his radio now back in place on his shoulder.

"While it's not really my business what adults do, we have a no bullying policy here. Please try to tone down your bickering in front of the kids." She looked at him seriously.

"Barry doesn't care, ma'am. He's our resident nerd and we love him."

"Yes, I figured." she sighed, but could see Barry's annoyed expression all too well. It wasn't her business so she didn't comment. "We're trying to set a certain example here, so just please tune it down, officers."

"Yes ma'am, though I'm not an officer, ma'am." Barry felt just as flustered as he had when having these sort of discussions at fourteen. He could tell this teacher had the same unamused expression as his own had back then.

"Very well, but as I said. Please tone it down." with that she left, and Ralph's eyes followed her.

Barry felt a bit amused that Ralph had not only had his one 'good joke' rejected, but also that he got a talking to about setting an example. He laughed lightly. His best friend Iris would have loved to see that, he thought.

A young boy with brown hair nearly crashed into the table, causing some of the sugar crystal experiments to fall over, a few of them nearly spilling onto the finger print set up. "Sorry officers!" He mumbled. He looked awfully young, but older than the child who'd told ralph off. Maybe seven at the oldest.

Ralph tilted his head towards the boy as Barry scrambled to clean up the sugar water. "He's not an officer, he's the assistant CSI. Do you have any questions, little man?"

"Wow, a real CSI?" The child started, his mouth slightly agape. Then the child seemed to think of something. "--Are you Barry Allen?"

Barry turned his head towards Ralph, a smirk across his lips. He turned back to the boy. "Yes, I am. What's your name?"

"Wow! You're Barry Allen! From CCPD!" He gripped his backpack straps. "I'm Peter Parker, Mr. Allen, sir!"

"Just Barry is fine, slugger. Can I help you with something?"

"I'm sorry I knocked over your sugar crystals." The boy frowned apologetically. "Kathy always says I live in my own world and need to watch where I'm going."

"That's okay those were just the first stage examples. You knew what I was doing here?" Barry seemed a bit impressed, this kid was young.

The boy nodded but continued to look up at Barry with an awed look on his face. Another child came by his side and took his hand. " Pete ," the child whined, drawing out the single syllable into several counts. "I'm bored, you left me alone with the firemen. They're boring."

Peter gaped at him. Not totally sure how to respond to Harry's lack of enthusiasm about the police. "Harry, this is CCPD! that's Barry Allen!"

"Okay." Harry's tone was flat. "I'm bored."

"You're always bored, Harry." Peter rolled his eyes. "I read your files on the Fisher case!"

Barry blinked. "How did you even get those? You understood them too?" He wasn't sure how a kid this young could have gotten a hold of those files, let alone understand the content.

"My foster dad is a cop, I know about the freedom of information act." He seemed to be tripping over himself.

"He understood it because he's a nerd. He's always using big words I don't understand!" Harry complained and Peter hid his face behind his friend slightly.

Barry found it endearing. Peter seemed to be the opposite of Barry, not quite as outgoing as the CSI was at the same age. He laughed softly. "That's okay, buddy. If you like science you should pursue it."

"Sounds lame." Ralph yawned. Extremely disinterested.

"Ignore him." Barry rolled his eyes, he could add terrible bedside manner with kids to his list of things he didn't like. "Science is really cool. There are so many things you can do with it."

"I like dinosaurs!" announced Harry. "Peter teaches me about them."

Barry laughed. "Does he now? What's your favourite dinosaur?"

"Triceratops! They've got big heads, with tusks!" The boy beamed and made a gesture of his head being bigger than it was. "It could take out a car!"

Barry laughed softly, entertained by the theatrics. He asked the boys if they wanted to see his presentation and they agreed. They seemed eager to hear what he had to say. Peter stayed for the entire thing, while Harry got bored and wandered off to one of the other booths.

By the end of the day a few kids had stopped by Barry's table, though more were interested in Ralph's job. Barry hoped that the older kids would be different. Only because he really did not want to sit around for the next four days doing nothing. He considered the possibility of bringing a few cases to file. Though that would risk the kids getting into them so he decided against it while they were still confidential.

When he started to pack up, Peter was still there. "Mr. Allen?" He spoke up when Barry was all packed up.

Barry glanced over and put his kit over his shoulder. "What's up?" He triple checked a few things while Peter spoke.

"Can I come by here tomorrow?" Peter had asked excitedly, eager to see what else he could learn from a real forensic scientist.

"Uh, I think it's the older kids here tomorrow." Barry explained as he started to put away his files. "But it was so fun talking to you today."

Peter awkwardly played with the hem of his sweatshirt. "I have advanced classes with the middle school."

"Oh," Barry grinned. "Then I would absolutely love to see you again tomorrow. We might not set up in the same place though so you'll have to find us, but definitely come down!" he encouraged as he started to set some things up to prepare for anyone else coming though.

The kids left with their teacher and Barry began to prepare for the next group.


End file.
